...of killing off Mercury. It has no unique vehicles of its own, it has no dealer network of its own (all Lincoln-Mercury) and frankly, what's the point? Slightly more luxurious Ford vehicles? Does that really merit its own division? Esp. when the generation that still remembers/respects the division's "glory days" is not going to be buying many cars soon...

If anything, Ford could keep the name as an uplevel trim line for certain vehicles...say the Ford Five Hundred "Mercury" edition. Look good on a badge on the rear of the car. And leave the serious luxury to a reinvigorated Lincoln with (mostly) unique vehicles and its own dealerships.

Ford should follow Saturns gameplan and import a bunch of Euro cars for sale here in the states. Heck, bring a few Aussie musclecars to mix things up a bit. There should be ZERO SUV's in the lineup as not to rob sales from the Ford brand.

Bingo. Make Mercury a channel for the foreign Fords that are too expensive to sell as Fords here: The Fiesta, Euro Focus, Mondeo, and Galaxy, plus the Australian Falcon sedan and ute, Fairlane, and Territory. That's a whole division lineup right there.

I agree the Malibu is one amazing car; the quality you feel from the drivers seat (pressing the buttons, the *thud* of the door,...) is simply astonishing compared to the previous generation. It's wierd, but I feel like Chevy will eventually buck perception and be seen as an equal to Toyandassan, but Ford just doesn't seem like they will ever change consumers' minds. I see too many gimmicks (Sync, panoramic roofs, Edge 'sport' package,...) and not enough product. GM pumped On*Star for so many years, and did it sell any cars? My guess is about two. Only since the 900s, Lambdas, CTS, and Malibu have come out have the attitudes of the media changed.

Those were very good days, but so were the 60's and early to mid 70s. The 1966 Cyclone was far prettier than its Ford analog. The 1967 Cougar shared no body panels with the Mustang and had a wonderful look all its own.The 1969 Marauder was a great niche vehicle. The 1970 Montego and Cyclone were pretty hot for the time, and the 1972 Montego (again sharing no panels with the Torino) was a styling coup. The 1970s Capri was a great car for the time, and Ford had nothign like it. Sales at Mercury routinely topped 400,000, 500.000 and even reached more than 700,000 at times.

The 1973s began a downturn when Mercury (and Ford as well) could not integrate 5 mph bumpers into the designs without making them look like battering rams added onto already exaggerated length hoods.

The original Sable reversed that awful trend a bit by giving the Taurus buyer an extra dose of class. Even the Topaz had a different roofline than the Tempo, and thereby looked better.

The 91 GM was so much better looking than the 91 Crown Vic that the CV eventually adopted the GM styling. Since then, Mercurys have been so close to the comparable Ford model (same doors, same roof, same dash)that it really begs the question what in heck have they been thinking? I say kill it. Even Plymouth and Oldsmobile didn't sink this low before bowing out.

actually did have some good years in the 70's, although most people today would rather forget those cars. However, they did have reasonable success with the Cougar once it grew up to be a Monte Carlo type personal luxury coupe. The mammoth Marquis models also sold fairly well once fuel started flowing again, and when GM downsized their big cars it actually took the pressure off of them for a bit, as there were still people who wanted their big cars to be plus-sized. The Zephyr was reasonably successful too. All in all, Mercury was strong enough to pull down around 700,000 or so sales annually in the late 70's.

I think the biggest problem though, is that big cars were always Mercury's strong suit. They would give you a car that was a lot more "important" looking than a Ford, but for not a lot more money. This worked especially well for them when they tried to ape the Lincoln style.

Big cars just aren't strong sellers anymore though, and it seems like every attempt they've made to try molding Mercury into a more sporty, upscale, youthful brand seem to fail.

Bingo. Make Mercury a channel for the foreign Fords that are too expensive to sell as Fords here

Been there, done that, didn't work. Remember Merkur and the last (Australian) Capri?

Mercury and Buick are in the same boat... they really have no competition besides each other. If Ford really wants Mercury to survive, they need more than just "padded Fords" or "discount Lincolns".

1. Ford is supposed to kill the Crown Vic and Town Car next year - I say leave the Grand Marquis. It still sells, it's cheap/easy to build, and there is still a market for it.

2. I think it's a mistake to have the Milan in the same showroom as the Zephyr/MKZ. The Milan would be the better choice in terms of value, but FoMoCo is so afraid of Cadillac right now, they feel that they have to have Lincoln match model-for-model, thus the MKZ against the CTS. Fact is, Caddy has a huge head start, and Lincoln probably won't catch them. Ditch the Z, put some of its equipment in an upper-trim Milan.

3. Lose the Mountaineer. (Buick should drop the Rainier too.)

4. Move the Freestyle body to Mercury and drop the Mariner as well. Ford has the Edge which better suits their marketing. A Mercury-badged Freestyle gives them a unique crossover, and a good challenger for the Pacifica and Rendezvous..

5. Give the Montego a real engine... better than the Five Hundred (which also needs more ponies). A big V6 for the 500, a small V8 for the Montego.

Ford should follow Saturns gameplan and import a bunch of Euro cars for sale here in the states. Heck, bring a few Aussie musclecars to mix things up a bit. There should be ZERO SUV's in the lineup as not to rob sales from the Ford brand.

Bingo! Someone suggested this years ago and I still think it is good idea. There is but one problem, well two actually. First off the current L-M dealer setup couldn't possibly sell European themed vehicles and secondly the name "Mercury" would need to be changed. It says "old" folks cars like Oldsmobile or Plymouth did. This might not be as big a problem as the Town Car/Grand Marquis selling dealer body. The Mercury name could just be transformed like GM is seemingly going to do with Saturn, but those L-M sales folks are not going to relate much less sell hip Euro style cars to younger folks. It probably wouldn't be as bad as Merkur was, but still.

I think part of the reason Olds failed is because people just weren't willing to give the brand a chance based on what they thought an "Oldsmobile" to be, an old stuffy throwback. Saturn is much newer and can change course. Mercury on the other hand is twinned with an equally prehistoric brand and they've got a dullard image with younger folks. Ford isn't even close to having funds to re-cast Mercury and/or seperate it from Lincoln by either product (the right way to do it) or image/marketing.

is that they're not going to be as durable or cheap/simple to fix as the Crown Vic. While they're RWD, which might give them some handling advantages over FWD police models like the Impala, Intrepid, the old Lumina/Grand Prix, and Taurus, and the Hemi isn't going to have too much trouble apprehending the suspects, I don't think these things are going to be able to take the abuse that a Crown Vic can. Forget about hopping curbs, pushing stalled cars out of the way, throwing a ton of gear in the cavernous trunk. And a Charger isn't going to have the GVWR to even take four chunky cops to Dunkin Donuts like a Crown Vic would.

Once the Crown Vic goes away, the cops are going to need a Charger to catch the speeders, a Five Hundred to haul them away, and an Expedition or Yukon for curb hopping and pushing stalled cars off the road! :P On the plus side, a Charger might not blow up if it gets rear-ended at 73 mph...

I agree. The Crown Vic is dead, once the new RWD Impala is here, and the word is out about the Charger. The CV doesn't have that much rear seat legroom to begin with for such a large sedan (its wheelbase is half a foot shorter than the Charger's). After awhile, a pterodactil either evolves or dies. Looks like the CV intends to die.

has the interior room and trunk space to make a decent police car, but I still doubt if it's beefy enough. Just as a rough indication, a Crown Vic weighs about 4000-4200 pounds. But the GVWR on them these days is up to around 5500-5600 pounds. They're full-frame, sturdy, and beefy, and can take a pounding. In contrast, I think the GVWR on a V-8 Charger or 300C is only about 4900 pounds. Yet the car itself is still about two tons! My old '81 Gran Fury had a GVWR of about 5100 pounds, but the car itself only weighed about 3500.

I dunno what the GVWR of a Ford 500 is, but I doubt if it has the 1400-1500+ pound spread over curb weight like a Crown Vic or the older more "traditional" police cars did.

A 500 might make a good patrol car, or be good for serving summonses, running people to court and jail, going out to break up domestic disputes and doing donut runs and such, but it's not going to be the kind of car that is easily pressed into heavy-duty, abusive service. Putting a 4.6 under the hood, or even this new 3.5 V-6, will help out with performance, but I have a feeling that the body and chassis still aren't going to be strong enough to hold up.

If nothing else, I can imagine that they're going to be having a much higher turnover with these newer police cars, because they're just going to get beat-up much more quickly.

As for fuel, police cars tend to guzzle anyway, regardless of engine. They spend a lot of time idling, for one thing. For another, they have beefed up components in the engine and transmission, and bigger brakes, which does help out their durability to a degree, but will also sap fuel economy. I remember my Gran Fury was EPA-rated at 13/15, while a civilian model was 16/22. I think an '89 Caprice police car was rated at 14/20, while the civilian V-8 was around 17/24. I dunno though, maybe they've closed the gap with the newer cars?

Rocky, you sure have strange taste for someone under 60. Are you SURE you are a young guy??

The 500 may have a lot going for it, but looks aren't its strength (plain to dumpy, no one even looks at it at auto shows). The suits at Ford kept hyping how its more "understated" (read boring) look would last longer than the more in-you-face looks of the 300.

Well, 300 sales have finally leveled off and sunk a bit, but September sales of the 500 are down 33% from last September (not a banner month even then) and the Freestyle wagon version is down 47%. They just blew it with that timid effort. For every person that likes the look, there are dozens who don't even see the thing when it is right in front of them.

It is the quintessential anonymous car. Some people may like that car-as-appliance rationality. It just isn't going to turn Ford around like the 427 styling would have.

I went to a Ford dealership to look at a Fusion, but the salesguy tried to talk me into a 500. I dunno why...I'm 36 and don't look particularly old. But he did see me drive up in an Intrepid, so maybe he thought I wanted something comparably sized.

Anyway, I told him that I just didn't like the looks of the 500. IMO it's kind of like an old man's Passat. But then, the Passat seemed to have "matured" a bit with the latest restyle too.

Same thing happened to me...I had dropped my car off for some service, and while waiting for the shuttle, started talking with a salesguy who was standing around out front. After telling him I liked the Fusion, but the lack of manual transmission on the V6 model bugged me, he asks "would you be interested in the 500? We have a bunch here if you want to test-drive..."

I guess they're doing whatever they can to sell them, but how much of a longshot is it that someone who's just lamented the lack of a manual transmission in a car is going to be wowed by the 500? And what made it odder was that he knew what I was driving as well...the conversation opener was "what year is your Mustang?"